Trade Offs

There's this graphic I saw recently that I keep going back to-- it shows that half of the U.S. population lives in 146 counties, leaving the entire rest of the nation to the other half!

Living in one of the more populous regions as I do, I find myself fantasizing about life somewhere a little less crowded: Like somewhere you didn't have to show up 20 minutes early to a movie just to find a seat and still sit shoulder to shoulder with all the other patrons. Or maybe someplace where you could find a restaurant you liked where the wait for a table on a Saturday night was less than 45 minutes.

All that sounds great until I wonder if in those wide-open spaces the movie I want to see would even be playing and then consider just how far I'd have to drive to get to that restaurant.

Independent Reading

"So, what are you reading?" I asked and sat down next to one of the boys in my class as he worked today.

He shifted a little uncomfortably. "It's on my iPad," he told me.

"Okay," I said, "do you have it here?"

He punched in the security code, launched the iBook app, and handed his device to me.

"At Any Price," I read from the title page. "I've never heard of it. What's it about?"

"It's a grown up book," he said, "I just started it, but it's really good."

"Hmmm," I frowned and swiped the screen to reach the first pages. "Do your parents know you're reading this?"

"Oh yeah," he shrugged. "They know."

"So what's the conflict?" I asked him, since that was the assignment we were working on.

"Um," he hesitated as my eyes scanned the display.

Artemis, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia? What's up with all the Greeks? I wondered and then my eye fell on the final line of the prologue:

The right to my virginity will be ceded to the highest buyer.

I raised an eyebrow and looked sternly at the student.

"I might change it," he said.

Time Marches On

Just two weeks ago I was rushing through dark, unfamiliar streets searching for the home studio of my ukulele instructor desperately trying to avoid arriving late for my first lesson. It was with relief that I knocked on his door at 5 PM sharp.

The following Thursday I bolted out of school with plenty of time to spare, but the warren of one syllable street names seemed no more familiar to me. The light of day also confused me, and I wondered if perhaps I had the time wrong... would I be half an hour early? But 5 o'clock again found me on right on time.

Tonight? The last light of day was still draining purple in the western sky as I carried my tiny instrument to my car following the lesson. It may be only January, but spring inexorably approaches.

Power Walk

One of our neighbors was recently profiled in a national magazine as "the most important person you don't know." Around here? Those are teasing words. 

"Considering you were on network TV last night until after ten, you're up pretty early!" I commented when I ran into her this morning out walking her dog.

"Oh! The traffic was terrible yesterday for NO REASON!" she explained. "It took me 57 minutes to get work, and I can't be late this morning."

"That's right," I agreed, "because you're the most important person we don't know."

"But you do know me," she replied.

"True," I shrugged. "Actually, you're the most important person I do know."

She leaned over to pick up her dog's poop. "Lucky you."

Practice What You Teach

The dawn of 2015 saw the advent (arrival, from the Latin ad meaning to and vent meaning come) of my third Word-a-Day calendar, as well. A couple of years ago a student gave me one as a holiday gift, and I've been hooked ever since. One thing that always delights me about it is how much the students like it, too: rarely a day goes by that one sixth grader or another does not comment on the word, and some even ask if they can have it to keep. It's such a conversation piece that more than one former student has stopped by to check the words for their coming birthdays.

I always set aside any page with a word that fits our word study parts, and most recently that word was transpontine. It is particularly timely, as we happen to be learning about the prefix trans this week. My friend Mary, who also teaches sixth grade English, noticed that page on my desk this morning when she stopped by.

"Transpontine," I said. "What do you think it means?"

"Across something," she answered.

"What does "pont" mean?" I asked. "Like Ponte Vecchio?"

Mary took Russian in high school, though, so my romance language clue was not very helpful. She is Catholic, though. "Pontiff is pope," she said.

I frowned. She was right. "Pont means bridge," I told her, my brain working away at the pope puzzle.

"The pope is a bridge..." Mary was thinking out loud.

"Between heaven and earth?" I finished.

"See how we did that?" she said.

Sing Along

"So, did you sit around all week playing ukulele while Heidi sang?" my uke instructor joked when we sat down for our second lesson.

I shook my head, but the image of it made me giggle. Tonight as I practiced what I learned, Heidi sat down next to me on the couch. "Hey, that sounds familiar," she said.

I pushed the sheet music closer to her. "I hear it now," she told me.

"Sing it!" I said.

And as I picked carefully, she verrrrry slowly sang, I keep a close watch on this heart of mine...

and continued until the very end, when Josh joined in, too, Because you're mine, I walk the line.

And then we all laughed. I can't wait to tell my teacher about it!

The Woods are Trees and the Trees Are Wood

Another day another movie, and this one we saw to the end, which was a good thing-- that Stephen Sondheim is one witty lyricist.

A Mysterious Emergency

With about 7 minutes left in Unbroken, I was reclining in a luxury movie seat, well aware of the irony, when suddenly the screen went dark and the house lights came up. A strobe light flashed halogen-bright and a mechanical voice quietly announced that An emergency has been detected in the building: please proceed to the nearest emergency exit and evacuate immediately.

All around me, people blinked, some straining to hear the message, others straining to comprehend it. Soon we filed in an orderly line to double doors down and to the left of the screen. I wasn't afraid, but I was alarmed as we entered the unheated concrete corridor beyond. We followed it to a wide stairway, also concrete, our footsteps echoing coldly, until we reached another set of metal doors and pushed through them into the night. 

Back at the entrance people were streaming through all sorts of anonymous doors that I never associated with the theater. There was no sign of emergency, but neither was there any sign of management or even other personnel, and hundreds of folks shivered in groups of three or four discussing their options. "I think it's just a drill," a child confidently assured the adults in his group, and of course he did. At school, it must seem like we are forever interrupting kids' routine activities and forcing them to file outside for no apparent reason.

At last we agreed that, since we knew the ending, and any sort of on the spot compensation would take some time, that it would be best to leave with our ticket stubs and worry about recompense later. So far, despite my efforts, I can't find out what happened-- it's more of a cliffhanger than the movie.

Rehearsing for the Show

It may not surprise you to learn that in order to prepare our students to take high stakes standardized tests, teachers in our district are directed to give high-ish stakes standardized practice tests. Oh, it's all in the name of data-analysis, and by now, kids in public school are pretty used to the routine. 

So, yesterday I couldn't resist adding a playful password that was required to download their second quarter check-up. Everyone had to wait until each student reached the screen where they were required to type in the secret word to continue. I found their anticipation kind of funny-- many were practically vibrating waiting for those last few screens to load, and when at last it was time to reveal the magic word that would let them start the, ahem, test, all eyes were riveted on me.

"I'm just going to put it on the board," I said and grabbed a piece of chalk. There I drew three stacked circles, a little hat on top, and some stick arms. "Do you want to build a..." I sang.

"SNOWMAN!" they warbled in chorus and eagerly set to work.

"Wait! WAIT!" cried one student. "It's NOT working!"

"Bro!" answered the guy next to him. "It's a compound word! NO space!"

Go Ahead and JUMP!

After writing letters asking for advice at the end of last week, yesterday it was time for my students to offer advice. The letters were coded and handed out to kids in other sections so that they might remain anonymous. We read a few examples and broke the art of writing an advice letter down in to three parts:

First offer sympathy and support. Next show that you understand the situation by rephrasing it and then giving your ideas to solve and/or resolve it. Finally, express your hope that you have been helpful and invite them to write again should they need further support.

In general the letters are super cute-- the students took their task very seriously and most offered the best advice they could. My favorite was this letter written in response to a student who felt he wasn't a good enough jumper to play soccer well:

I am sorry this is happening to you. I play football and in that sport you have to jump, just like soccer.

If you want to jump well, then I suggest that every time you walk by a doorway try to jump and touch the top of it. Every time you leave a room touch the top of the doorway. When you walk, try to skip or hop to the place instead. Last advice I have for you is before any practice or game try jumping side to side, forward and backward. 

I hope my advice helps you. Jump well and stay fit!

Thin Green Line

Whoa! Even the Girl Scouts are offering Vegan options now!

Enjoy your thin mints, plant eaters.

Honeymoon Period

"Do you feel any different now that you're married?" a colleague asked me today.

"Not really," I laughed. "Do you?" She, too, had recently married her longtime partner, a man she had been with for over 15 years and had two children with.

"No, but kind of," she answered. "I feel a little more..." she trailed off, looking for the right adjective.

"Kindly?" I supplied.

"Exactly!" she said. "I feel much more affectionate and patient. You would think that now that we're married I'd take a lot more for granted, or something."

"I know what you mean," I told her, "I feel it, too."

A friend of ours who had just celebrated her 21st wedding anniversary listened in amusement. "Just wait," she shook her head, "just wait."

Oh, Tolerance Club!

Today our conversation centered on stereotypes and privilege, and inevitably perhaps, given recent events, it circled round to Muslims and terrorism. "Just because the attackers on 9-11 were Muslim, doesn't necessarily mean all Muslims will attack us," one of the adults said.

There was an audible snort. Just because some people come to Tolerance Club doesn't mean they're tolerant, I thought.

"What about ISIS?" demanded the snorter. "They're Muslim."

I decided to take an indirect approach to his question. "Before September 11, 2001, the worst terrorist attack in the US was carried out in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh, a white man who didn't like the government. Nobody thinks we should be suspicious of all white guys because of that."

"Of course not!" snorted the snorter, "That would be ridiculous. The whole government is practically white guys."

And so it goes.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

After a fun and productive weekend the conversation around here has turned to the weather: specifically whether or not it will be icy enough in the morning to give us a delayed opening for school. Oh, it's a squeaker... after days of below-freezing temperatures, today it nearly reached 40, but as the sun went down, so did the mercury. Precipitation is predicted to begin around 2 AM, when it will be cold, but how cold?

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Personally, I can't get emotionally invested in this one, and I said as much to Heidi. "Yeah!" she replied, "I get that. But I have a practical concern; what clothes should I get ready?"

I understood her dilemma even though I did not share it. An old saw came to mind. "Expect the best and prepare for the worst?" I suggested.

She nodded. "But in this case," she wondered, "which is which?"

Maybe I Will

And there came that moment while taking down our Christmas tree today, just before we passed the point of no return, where I actually considered putting all the ornaments right back on and just leaving it up.

Dear Abby

Back when I started teaching, I ambitiously founded a student newspaper for my 6th grade team. Published 4-5 times per year, it was a product of the hard work of about a dozen kids and me. At our first editorial staff meeting I asked what sort of features they might like to include, and by far and away the top of their list was an advice column. They decided to call it "Dear Kitty" partially because "Abby" was already taken, and partially because that's what Anne Frank called her diary.

Flash forward a couple of decades, and with a unit whose guiding question is How can we use writing to solve problems? an advice letter activity seemed like a natural. "Can anyone tell me who Dear Abby is?" I started the lesson, but there were blank looks all around. Surprised, I took a step back and explained the concept of writing anonymously to a newspaper for advice.

At a meeting yesterday, someone asked me if the students had been thrown off by our crazy weather-related schedule this week. "Not really," I replied. "When you're in sixth grade? Nothing is a surprise, basically because everything is new." They laughed because they knew it was true, especially for middle school kids.

It took me a while to realize it, but I'm pretty sure eleven and twelve are the most resilient ages of humans-- you're young enough to have very fluid expectations, but old enough to appreciate novelty. At that age, the phrase roll with it was invented for you.

And as a long time sixth grade teacher, it was invented for me, too, because adjusting and improvising are often what I have to do to reach my students, despite the amount of data I may have on them. And so today I found myself describing a cultural pillar of 20th century America to a class full of kids with iPads in their hands.

"Is it kind of like ask.com?" one wanted to know.

"Not really," I said.

"That century was, like, 20 years ago!" added another.

"Fifteen," I corrected her.

"Whatever!" she replied. "We weren't even born, yet."

However... Once they saw an example and were asked to write, on paper, with a silly pseudonym, for some free advice, you would be amazed at what a cool idea it was, and they totally rolled with it.

Group Dynamics

I had my first ukulele lesson after school today (thank you, Heidi!), and since it was way! tooooooooo cold to leave my uke in the car today, I carried it in with my lunch and back pack. Once in my classroom, though, I couldn't just leave it in its case, and so during homeroom I brought it out.

My students must have missed the "ukuleles are cool now" memo, because the first question I got was,"Are you from Hawaii?" But a few bars of Over the Rainbow changed their tune, and soon they wanted to try it themselves.

As tempting as it may be, I've learned not to be the type of teacher who keeps all the fun stuff to myself, and I readily handed it over (if with a silent prayer that I would still be able to take my lesson on it this afternoon). I needn't have worried; everyone was very respectful, taking turns gently strumming the strings while imitating the chords they thought they saw me finger.

At last, the most dominant personality of the group took control. "I'm going to play No Type, and you're going to sing," she said. Then, noting my raised eyebrows, she added, "The clean version." While she strummed the open strings in rhythm, the rest of the kids circled around her and sang the lyrics in chorus. Behind my desk, I leaned back in my chair and watched their faces relax and shine as they performed for each other and themselves. It was a sweet and lovely moment.

The bell rang, and they handed me my ukulele and headed off to class.

AKA

Since I'm lucky enough to teach in the same school as my sister-in-law who shares the same last name with me, there is inevitable confusion when it comes to our phones, our rooms, and most often, our mail boxes. Over the years, I've learned to deal with it, as I'm sure Emily has, too, although there is always some moment of extreme confusion when someone calls and asks a question for which I have absolutely no frame of reference, and it can be a little annoying when I'm missing some handout that absolutely must go home today! 

Usually, though, when I receive something that I know is not intended for me, like, say, a class set of Art Magazine, I simply move it to the adjoining box, as I did earlier today. But I confess that I sighed with a little frustration later when I checked my box right before going home and found a card addressed to an unfamiliar student, Topher Z. So, with a frown and a shrug, I slipped it into Emily's box and breezed out of the office considering that unusual name. Topher? Where did that even come from? It must be short for something. Maybe...

And I turned on my heel to fetch the card for the student that I know as Christopher.

I Think That Was an Insult

"The famously delicate streets of Washington DC got some snow" was how Brian Williams put it on the Nightly News.

Hmmm...

After a kooky day of countless crappy commutes-- so many folks trying in good faith to make it to school despite treacherous roads littered with fender benders, some involving school buses, we find ourselves safely at home tonight, preparing to enjoy chicken with white gravy and biscuits.

AND, they've already called the two-hour delay for tomorrow.

Since I Missed Those Two Days Before Break...

Dear whoever thinks "reindeer poop" is a good holiday gift,

I don't agree.

Thanks for thinking of me, though!

Old Times There

I got a banjo for Christmas! (Fear not gentle reader! I also got some music lessons.) Predictably, I have been messing around with it every day since. That toasted pecan finish, those twangy strings, that drum skin face are all irresistible. Just picking around by ear, though, what tune do you think I found?

Dixie.

Coincidence? Ya'll be the judge and jury, heah?

What Old Friends Are For

I was facetiming with an old high school chum this evening. She lives in Colorado, and at first refused to accept the call, keeping her thumb over the camera so that it was nothing but an audio call. "I'm embarrassed for you to see that I'm still in my pajamas!" she told me, but when I reported that we were having a lazy day around here, too, she relented.

"Look it's snowing here!" she turned the phone to reveal a lovely landscape of new fallen snow and Rocky Mountains beyond. There was nothing but cold rain out the window here, and so we caught up with what had happened to each of us since last we spoke.

As we chatted, her dog came into the room, and she put him on the screen, so I, in turn, presented first our dog and then our cat. "Now who's that?" she asked when she saw the cat.

"Penelope," I replied.

"I thought you were going to name your next calico cat Matisse," she reminded me, and I laughed, because that was true about 20 years ago. "Remember?" she continued. "You couldn't wait until it did something naughty so you would be able to say, Cut it out, Matisse!"

Supply Side

I have a distinct memory of sitting in the back seat of our station wagon watching the little plates on the gas pump fall one after the other as my mom filled up the tank. It was 1974 and the Energy Crisis was in full swing. The price per gallon of gasoline in our New jersey town had recently topped fifty cents. At twelve years old, that seemed like an impossible amount to me; I remember shaking my head and thinking that a whole dollar would barely buy 2 gallons.

If that was one of my earliest economic recollections, six years later I got another lesson when I stayed with a friend and her family for a few days in Italy. In Europe, gas was three times as much as it was in the states, but I had flown there from our home in Saudi Arabia, and when her dad asked me about the price of gas in the Kingdom, I laughed when I told him it was about 28 cents a gallon. His outrage surprised me. "Everyone should be paying more for a commodity in such short supply," he fumed. "It should be a free market."

Today I feel lucky to be a person who rarely drives over 5 miles a day; I can go over two weeks without filling the tank. I'm also fortunate to be able to pay for gas whenever I want to take a longer trip, even when it's over four dollars a gallon like it was in 2008. And I understand that the price of a gas is a function of many things: economic, environmental, and political.

Even so, this morning when I filled my tank for less than 35 dollars? I did a little happy dance.

The More Days of Christmas

When I was a kid, New Years day was one of the most boring days of the year. The drone of football floated over the drowsy living room, and upstairs the only other thing on was the Mummers Parade, a confounding pageant of feathers and stringed instruments capering down Broad Street. It wasn't hard to see that Christmas break was definitely over.

These days I like it better. Heidi and I always go to the first movie of the morning, and then the day is filled with preparing our traditional meal for family and friends. That takes the sting out of the end of vacation. And then there are some years, like this year, when school doesn't start until next Monday.

Four more days off? Now that's the way to start a year!

Legal in Virginia

When you know it's right, it's right.

This morning after 16+ years together, Heidi and I went on down to the courthouse and got us a marriage license, and while there was no walk down the aisle, there were many wedding day smiles when the civil celebrant put it all to rest, as long as we both shall live.

Bragging Rights

A few months ago my brother complained of hip pain that grew excruciating when he was forced to sit still, for example on airplanes (on which he traveled on all the time for work), for any length of time over a little while. "I know what it is," I said. "It's bursitis."

I was able to speak with such authority, not only because I'm a notorious know-it-all, but also because, I, too, had suffered from such pain. Regular readers might recall that back in May of 2012 I sought help from an acupuncturist for my malady. Back then, after a couple of months of semi-weekly treatment, I was pain-free. Recently, though, that hitch in my left-side giddy-up has returned and so I also returned for a little more spinning needle therapy today. Although my relief was not quite as immediate as last time, I am looking forward to a couple of 30 minute snoozes a week for the next month or so.

Oh? And when, a couple of days after that conversation, my mother called to check in with my brother about his own hip, he had been diagnosed and treated, and in response he spoke some of my favorite words:

"Tracey was right." 

Shipping News

The guy at the UPS store saw us coming: he burst out the door to help us with our burden of parcels and bags and boxes to be shipped. Once inside, though, it was him who seemed to be hyperventilating. "We'll get through this!" he said under his breath surveying the load now stacked neatly on the floor by the counter.

Our eyebrows were raised; we knew there was a lot to send, but this was a shipping store, wasn't it? And as nice and helpful as he was to us, he was a little testy with any new customers coming in the door, "It's going to be a few minutes," he informed them curtly.

Each box that was taped up, weighed, and labeled was a personal triumph, a huge weight off his shoulders and onto the pick-up pile. And when, 85 pounds later, at last I swiped my card and signed the slip to finalize the transaction, for a moment it seemed like he might vault the counter to give us a high five or something, so it was a little anti-climactic when he simply nodded and said, "Next customer?"

There is a World Elsewhere

After eight crazy days of family, we dropped the last of our holiday guests at the airport this afternoon and decided to head downtown instead of home. There we entered a jolly throng of folks visiting the mall and its museums. The Nature's Best Photography exhibit was stunning as always, and there were several fun items on sale at the bustling National Gallery gift shop. Afterwards, a crescent moon shone bravely through the clouds and stop lights reflected red on the wet pavement of Constitution Avenue as we drove home in the gathering dusk, and it felt good to have rejoined the world.

The Color of Time

Looking for a movie to entertain our diverse group, I found The Hustler on Netflix this afternoon, and sure enough it had something to hold the attention of each of us: Heidi's dad liked the pool playing; her mom liked Paul Newman; her brother was interested in watching a classic for the first time, and I got a kick out of seeing Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats. When it was all over, I flipped immediately to its sequel. I saw The Color of Money back in '86 when it came out, and I haven't seen it since. Back then, I considered it a Tom Cruise movie, of course, and Paul Newman seemed like a minor character who abandons Vincent in a temper tantrum.

Today, though, I was mostly interested in seeing how Fast Eddie fared in the 25 years following his hollow victory in Ames, and when it came down to that final showdown in Atlantic City, I was actually rooting for the old man. Sure, Tom Cruise and I are the same age, born just a few days apart, but both of us are much closer to Eddie Felson's age now. Funny how that happens.

Don't Let Me Interrupt

I was upstairs washing my face and cleaning up a little after dinner, and when I opened the door to go downstairs I heard raised voices below. Heidi, her brother, and parents were having a little argument about sex, the church, and marriage. "That's called fornication," Mark said forcefully, and all of a sudden? I didn't need to go downstairs anymore. So I tip-toed back into my room and quietly closed the door.

What is Christmas?

This year our family holiday traditions were upended tail over tea kettle, and in the days leading up to Christmas there were several earnest and somewhat emotional discussions about how and when things should happen. In the end, like Charlie Brown's Christmas pageant, everything turned out just right. The truth is, with the spirit of the season and our abiding love for each other, we couldn't fail.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Sounds Like Fun

We have only opened our stockings, but so far a big hit of this holiday has been the hand held sound effect machine that 9-year-old Richard got. With 16 options ranging from applause to farting it's entertaining on its own, but when we invented a little game where someone asks a question that must be answered by pressing one of the buttons, things got really hilarious.

Treat: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Richard: Bomb falling and exploding

Me: How do you feel about your brother?
Annabelle: Loud belching sound

And then she whipped out the tiny pink water pistol she got from her Christmas cracker aimed it at Richard and punched the sound of a weapon loading and firing.

Do You See What I See?

You do if you're looking at turducken. Which incidentally, as Bill observed, looks exactly like the roast beast they serve down in Whoville. 

The Prettiest Sight You'll See

I have been looking for the ideal location to string that extra set of mini LED lights since the 2-pack arrived a couple of weeks ago. The first one festoons the window behind my desk at school, and I like it so much there that it will continue to blink merrily all throughout the year. But the second set sat forlornly on the dining room table until last night, when it occurred to me that a table-top tree for the apartment our neighbor has so kindly lent my sister and her family would be the perfect place for it.

And that's what we did: there was a cute little balsam with colorful lights aglow waiting for them when they pulled in from Atlanta at 1:30 last night. The paper reindeer with the handprint antlers that Annabelle presented to me then was an instant tree-topper, and this morning we made ornaments from shrinky dinks. Sure, I've seen a lot of pretty trees this year, but this one? Is definitely in the top three.

A Christmas Past

I am a freshman in college, thousands of miles from my family, feeling all alone in a tiny town in upstate New York. A high school buddy of my dad's is the principal of the local school, though, and sometimes I babysit for his three children. On this December night, after the kids are in bed, rather than study for exams as I should, I snap on the TV. Sitting in a family living room rather than surrounded by the cinder block walls of my dorm room seems so normal, that I can't resist. I don't need to turn the knob far to find what I want to watch-- John Denver and the Muppets are in the middle of a corny version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, and for the next hour Home seems a little closer.

When it's time to go home in a couple of weeks, I bring the soundtrack album with me, and over the next thirty-five years it becomes a family classic in all its goofy, sappy splendor, but the show itself is lost, never released to be viewed again...

Until tonight, that is. Last year I ordered a bootleg copy from some sketchy internet pirate, and although it didn't arrive in time for Christmas then, I have it now, and true it's blurry and quite dated, but I am not disappointed.

Selective

I hung the last of the ornaments on the Christmas tree today, and as I worked, I took a moment to admire each one in our collection. It was with pleasure that I placed the hiking boot, the loon, the snow shoes, and all the curly white dogs. As I found a place of honor for both the pencil and the pen, I noted that there was no computer, phone, or tablet, and I knew then, in my curator's heart, that there never would be.

Sprung from Cages Out on Hwy 9

My breath was the only thing steaming as I waited in my 37 degrees car this evening. My battery was dead, but I knew it was coming (it's been a lazy cranker all week), and honestly? Things could have been much worse. As it was, I could see the bright lights of my warm classroom from where I was, and roadside assistance was on the way.

As I waited, I thought back to other car troubles in other times. In my early 20s, I lived at the beach and my brother, sister, and I drove a succession of beat-up Hondas and VWs. When they wouldn't start, we would get whichever of our friends were around to roll them onto the flat feeder road that ran parallel to the shore and while everyone pushed, one of us would sit in the driver's seat, pop the clutch, and floor the accelerator to get the engine running. Then, with a toot and a wave, the driver would speed off to charge the battery on the wide boulevards of our resort town. It felt like a magic trick every time.

I guess cars were less complicated then, and it seemed like everything else was, too.

You Have Not Because You Ask Not

We were discussing the theme of a short memoir in reading class today. The basic plot line is that a dad takes his six children into a department store where they happen to be selling baby chicks. One of the kids utters the words we have all spoken, most of us more than once. "Can we get one, Dad?"

This dad says, "Sure."

The oldest brothers in the story look at each other in disbelief. "We can?!" one asks.

And then, when the half-dozen of them are bickering for picking rights, their dad tells them that they can each have one.

At this point, I always pause, and look out at the class. They are generally wide-eyed, because, they, like the kids in the memoir,

can
not
believe
their
ears!

Later in the story, their mother is also incredulous that her husband would think such a thing was a good idea, and one of the chicks dies and the oldest brother offers to share his with his grieving little brother, but through it all, when asked what they take away from this tale, the students always come up with some version of It never hurts to ask. Like today, they offered my favorite yet: Expect the impossible! And they mean it in the best possible way.

And it is the charm of such childish optimism, especially at this time of year, that is one of the reasons I'm going back tomorrow. (But after that? I'm going to take a couple weeks off.)

The Old-fashioned Way

What advice to give a classroom full of sixth graders with brand new iPads?

Well... in addition to the pages of acceptable use guidelines and possible consequences for misuse (I had my group do charades), in the end the best guidance I could give was this:

If your iPad makes the job quicker and easier, then use it, but if not? Don't.

And so it was that in reply to several complaints that dictionary.com was inadequate for the current assignment needs, I finally held up one of the twenty-five volumes we have in the classroom in exasperation. "Try this! It's called dictionary dot BOOK!"

A Last Time for Everything

I changed into sweats and a hoodie when I got home from school today and then ran out to the grocery for a few things. At the register the cashier asked for my ID before scanning my six pack of beer.

It's been a while since that happened.

The Sidewalks of Life

The list of classic childhood injuries is mercifully short if oft-repeated. Skinned knees and elbows, mosquito bites, stubbed toes, and crushed fingers top the list. As we grow older those maladies are replaced by pimples, paper cuts, sunburns, and hangovers; our earlier mishaps become nostalgic novelties. Later still, we are beset by those prosaic aches and pains accompanied by lingering suspicions of more serious indispositions.

Is this progression or digression? Hard to say, but I can tell you from personal experience today that it still hurts like hell to get your fingers closed in a door.

Found Poetry

A friend's daughter posted the following on Facebook:

I want to tell a something.

I am miss my older brother,

He is moving to heading to new Colorado in today, And He is time new a chapter of his life but he will learning more a adventure new a place like beautifully, A cold in there. And I hope He will be safety in the Colorado and I know that is dangerous is big road because of ice and snow as I am sure.
I want to thank you for long time you and I are taught know many years be though we are know each other a close big brother and little sister. And also I am always love him as my brother and I know he is good guy and good rough of man. He is always used care of me because I am his little sister.

My Brother,
I hope you be safety in new Colorado and I am sure you will love photography in there a lot as more and also hope you will see visit to us again. Merry Christmas.

The author is deaf, and so perhaps her writing is shaped by ASL, but regardless, I am captivated by both the powerful prose and the surprising syntax, and I find it quite beautiful.

O, Christmas Tree

Each December the Lions Club takes over a little corner of a grocery store parking lot not far from our home. Staffed by friendly volunteers, they offer a nice selection of firs and balsams, and it is there that we usually find the perfect tree for us. Every year jolly men in parkas and boots assisted by pink-cheeked high school boys carry our find to the front of the lot, give it a nice fresh cut, bind it in plastic mesh, and tie it to the roof of our car.

This evening when we pulled up after a busy day of shopping and errands, we were greeted by a whole different staff, comprised mostly of teenaged girls in fuzzy pajamas, thermal shirts, down vests, and knit caps. Their leader was a woman of perhaps sixty with a bit of a harried air; she manned the electric saw as most of the girls chattered by the binder. As we waited to have our tree trunk trimmed, another customer called over to her. "I see you have a new crew here! Are they any good?" he asked with a wink.

She looked at the assembly maneuvering a Fraser fir toward the parking lot. "They're very," here she paused, "energetic," she finished diplomatically.

"We heard that!" The girls shouted back, and then they giggled as they hefted the tree onto the roof of the waiting car and neatly tied it in place.

Nothing You Dismay

In my years as a teacher, I have sat through many a school concert, and in general, I'm pretty impressed with what the music department at our school can do with a couple hundred novice, not to mention child, musicians.

In the last few years they have introduced short interludes played by small ensembles between acts.  It's a great concept; it gives the restless adolescent audience something to focus on as the crew resets the stage between the chorus, orchestra, and band portions of the show. These mini-numbers aren't always as strong; there a lot fewer musicians to bolster the performance, but it's impossible not to give the student musicians props for their effort.

Today I was delighted to hear a couple of former students, brothers, playing a french horn-trombone duet of O Tannenbaum, but it was the brassy, trumpet-tuba version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman that made me wish I had brought my phone along to record it...  And I mean this in the most affectionate way: it was so bad, it was awesome!

Gno Way!

A few days ago my nephew texted me a picture of his dinner.

Away at college, he had prepared the homemade sweet potato gnocchi that we made together while he was home for Thanksgiving-- how awesome is that?

Proximity

My students were doing some dictionary work for their weekly word study when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one kid slam his finger onto the page and turn wide-eyed to his partner. "Is this even allowed in school?!" he demanded.

To be honest, that type of thing happens a lot-- students are forever looking up "inappropriate" words in the dictionary and pointing them out for the entertainment of those around them. What follows is usually a brief lecture on maturity from me, and today I took a deep breath in preparation as I walked over to the two boys huddled over the giant book opened before them.

"Granny!" read the first student. "An OLD LADY!"

"That's just rude!" replied his partner, and then slid his finger down the page to graph.

Junk Fair

Today was the day when I took my classes to the school book fair. Sponsored by the PTA, it has been an annual tradition at our school since before I started. My students are always so excited to go and check out the merch in the makeshift bookstore set up in the library that it truly makes me question the fall of brick and mortar commerce. It's never the books that they want most, though-- most of their crumpled bills and sweaty coins go for posters, bookmarks, pencils, and other novelties such as this year's big seller, the chocolate calculator. For four bucks you got a little box that had either a calculator made to resemble a chocolate bar or a chocolate bar made to resemble a calculator; I'm still not sure which.

Imagine

I've noticed that my students this year are really good test-takers, and by that I mean they are very respectful of a testing environment, always quiet and quite serious. I don't mean that they are good at studying for tests, because they are not; preparing in advance for an assessment on specific material is still an emerging skill for most of them.

That's not entirely unexpected, though, managing a schedule of 7-8 different teachers is one of the ways middle school kicks it up a notch from elementary school. Unfortunately, they also seem to have another glaring weakness as well: so many times when I ask them to use their imagination they act as if their brains are breaking.

Just today in a mini-lesson on figurative language the question was "If the main character in your book was an animal what would he or she be and why?" I was astonished at how many students could not fathom how to approach this exercise. "There's no right or wrong answer," I told them, "as long as you can explain why." And that seemed to frustrate them even more.

PS Could it actually be 34 years since we lost John Lennon? Imagine that.

Fire Side Chats

"I just don't learn that way," a friend of mine said the other day when I was asking her, again, if she was listening to the podcast that is sweeping the nation, Serial.

So that was a no, but it was not a no I could really understand. Personally, I love the radio, and specifically, talk radio. In fact, I'm sure I listen to way more radio than I watch TV, which is a revelation to even me, as I type this.

My appreciation of the medium actually goes pretty far back; I have clear memories of being eleven and desperately trying to tune my AM radio through the static to find WOR from New York City. At 7 PM, the airwaves were usually pretty cooperative, despite the 70 miles separating me from the station. What did I want to hear, you wonder? The CBS Radio Mystery Hour, hosted by EG Marshall.

Oh, it was an acknowledged throw-back to the golden days of radio, but I couldn't get enough of the suspenseful audio drama. Later, I became a fan of Prairie Home Companion, also a nostalgia-fueled program. And these days? In addition to news, I love me some audiobooks and podcasts. And just tonight I heard a radio documentary on Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, who were, it seems, the first family of radio.

Of course, I was enthralled.

Well Played

Every middle school kid is fragile in some way, but some are a little more so than others. This year we have such a student; he had enough trouble in elementary school that we were all a little worried about how he might make the transition to sixth grade. So far, he's surprised everyone with how well he's doing. In fact, if I didn't know what to look out for, it probably wouldn't be on my radar screen at all.

Sure, he's a character; and when the other day he burst into homeroom in his usual state of disorganization and dishevelment and asked loudly for everyone's attention, he certainly had mine.

I watched carefully as the 12 other kids stopped talking and turned to face him with curiosity.

"I have a very important announcement!" he continued. "I... have... an... ocarina!!!!" Then he bowed slightly and headed toward his seat.

"No one cares if you have an ocarina!" snorted one of the other students.

I took a deep breath, but before I could address this unkind remark, the first kid turned to his classmate and replied, "Dude! Nobody cares if anybody has an ocarina. That's why it's funny!" Then he shrugged and sat down.